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Christian Gerhaher/Lawrence Zazzo/Alina Ibragimova at Wigmore Hall

A German baritone takes on all three Schubert songcycles, a countertenor sings early Mozart; and a French music recital

Hilary Finch

September 26 2011, 4:06pm, The Times

Christian Gerhaher

Lawrence Zazzo

Alina Ibragimova

An exceptional week for voice-fanciers at Wigmore Hall was dominated by the German baritone Christian Gerhaher singing all three Schubert songcycles. I dropped in on his Winterreise and found myself listening to one of the finest live interpretations I’d heard in some 20 or 30 years. Gerhaher stands stock still, one hand on the piano: no shakings of the head, no starings of the eyes, no lunging out at the audience. Everything written in Schubert’s score — every last dynamic marking and accent — is re-created and contained within a perfectly integrated baritone, singing in its prime. And it is projected not as interpretative point-making, not as the mere physical wounds on this winter journey, but as the deep soul-ache of…